


Of Gossips and Gryffindors

by AnonymousCapybara



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:07:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28306518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousCapybara/pseuds/AnonymousCapybara
Summary: Lavender Brown has always been a giggling, gossiping, Gryffindor. But suddenly, in her seventh year, everything has changed.
Relationships: Lavender Brown/Seamus Finnigan
Kudos: 4





	Of Gossips and Gryffindors

Life in Gryffindor Tower was so much different her seventh year, and not just in the ways you would expect.

Lavender always knew her role, before. She was gorgeous. She was the gossip. She giggled with Parvati in corners, teased Seamus and Dean gleefully. She let herself get carried away with her silliness, only to be reined in by her more sensible best friend’s glares. She snorted derisively at Neville Longbottom when he tripped or stumbled over his words. 

She watched Harry, Ron, and Hermione with sharper eyes than anyone knew. She was aware that they were always up to something, flaunting their bravery like the Gryffindors they were. Like the Gryffindor she was supposed to be.

And sure, she had her moments of bravery. Joining the DA in fifth year, for instance. Even going after Ron when it should have been painfully obvious that he only had eyes for Hermione was brave, she supposed. In its own way.

But suddenly, in her last year, everything changed. 

The common room felt off from the beginning. Most obviously, there was no trio lurking in the corner, eyes shifting nervously as they planned and plotted together. If she was to believe reports, Ron was deathly ill and Harry and Hermione had fled. But she wasn’t stupid. Lavender knew that those three were going to save the world.

Parvati had been her best friend from the moment they had been sorted into the same house. Parvati, who had a twin elsewhere but still treated Lavender as if she was her own sister. The two had spent many a late night painting their arms in Parvati’s henna ink and rehashing every painstaking detail of their days, bursting into giggles when Hermione inevitably shushed them angrily from her corner of the dormitory.

She and Parvati were still attached at the hip. But things were different. Even without Hermione there to admonish them in the late-night hours, they were quieter, more subdued. And Hermione’s absence was felt in their dormitory in a way that Lavender could never have predicted. 

(One day, she came back to her dorm to find a stack of books on Hermione’s otherwise empty bedside table. She glanced over at Parvati, a question in her eyes. Parvati shrugged. “It just felt right.”)

Then there was Seamus. Seamus, who had always been such a spitfire. Seamus, who had always had a spark in his eye and Dean Thomas at his side. Dean wasn’t there – they weren’t even sure where he was - and Seamus looked more than a bit lost. It showed in the way he walked in the halls or sat on couches, never quite filling the whole space, always leaving a Dean-sized gap.

And Neville. Neville, who had always seemed to be the least Gryffindor of all of them. Neville, who had been pudgy and awkward and stumbling. Neville, who was suddenly none of those things.

Of the eight of them who had been sorted into Gryffindors as first years, only four had returned to complete their education. 

Gryffindor Common Room was not the only part of school that was drastically different, either. Snape was Headmaster. Death Eaters were teaching them Dark Arts and Muggle Studies. The castle no longer felt like her home.

Classes, especially the ones being taught by the Carrows, were going about as horribly has Lavender could imagine. 

One evening, during the second week of the term, Lavender was sitting in the common room with Seamus, who was staring blankly into the fire, not even pretending to work and Parvati, whose brow was furrowed deeply as she attempted to write a Muggle Studies essay. Lavender couldn’t bring herself to touch the essay, which was supposed to detail how Muggles were inferior to wizards. Upon receiving the assignment, Neville had begun arguing with Carrow, which had led to him being assigned a detention and also being slashed across the face with some dark curse. Hannah Abbott had covered her eyes and squirmed in her seat, but chased Neville down in the hallway to heal the gash. 

“This isn’t right,” Lavender said, startling Seamus out of his daze and causing Parvati to smear her ink. “This isn’t right,” she repeated. “We have to do something.”

And that was when Neville had materialized behind them.

Even last year, Neville wouldn’t have dared insert himself in their conversation without an invitation. But this wasn’t last year, and this certainly wasn’t the same Neville.

“Do you still have your DA coins?” Neville asked. All three of them nodded. “Ginny and Luna and I have been talking. Just because Harry’s not here doesn’t mean that we just lay low and take it. We’re getting Dumbledore’s Army back together.”

Just like that, Lavender had a purpose again. Neville, Luna, and Ginny were the face of the movement, sure. They openly defied orders, going so far as to attempt to break into the Headmaster’s office, for which they received detention in the Forbidden Forest with Hagrid. (Lavender still couldn’t understand why this was what Snape would choose for a punishment, he had to know that Hagrid would go easy on them.)

Lavender rebelled in quieter - but not less important – ways. She started out by spreading whispers around the common room. She had always been a gossip, after all. Soon, news of Dumbledore’s Army had reached the ears of Gryffindors who had never been invited before, and many Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws as well.

In the hallways, she intervened for younger students when they were about to be bullied by the Slytherins. This led to her taking more than a few curses, which in turn led to Parvati tsking at her while she muttered healing spells and Seamus begging her to be careful, his once-fiery eyes sparking sadly at her. 

“Please, Lav, I can’t handle losing you too.”

“You haven’t lost Dean. He’ll be back, you bloody moron,” Lavender retorted kindly to Seamus, gripping his forearm tightly in her right hand while Parvati healed a gash on her left arm. “The Death Eaters are bigger gossips than I am. We’d hear if they got him.”

Seamus looked only vaguely mollified, but he smiled wanly at her in return. Lavender found herself, more than anything, wanting to bring back the loud, sparking boy Seamus had once been.

Parvati whispered to her about Seamus late at night in their dormitory, even though Hermione wasn’t there to shush her. “You should see the way he looks at you, Lav. That boy is wrapped around your finger.”

Lavender just brushed her off.

Things at Hogwarts spiraled. Looking back on it, later in life, Lavender could never recall the order in which everything happened. She was in survival mode, taking everything one moment at a time.

Neville set up a headquarters of sorts in the Room of Requirement, which would later become a hide-out for so many. Lavender, Parvati, and Seamus spent many hours there, planning and plotting ways to cause as much trouble as possible for Snape and the Carrows. 

Every other year at Hogwarts had been fun, and this year was anything but. Lavender, however, found her moments. She and Seamus (and less often, Parvati) would occasionally disillusion themselves and sneak into the hallways at night to find new ways to rebel against Snape’s regime.

“Dumbledore’s Army: Still Recruiting” Lavender had painted on the wall one evening in big, bold letters, Seamus standing guard behind her. When she finished, the two sprinted back to Gryffindor Tower as quickly as they could, gripping hands and falling into a fit of giggles as soon as they made it back through the portrait hole.

Lavender could hardly shake the giddiness and adrenaline later, and Seamus’ eyes sparked brightly at her the next morning for across the common room.

He began to take notes from Neville, after that. Seamus went up to bat against Amycus and Alecto Carrow at every opportunity that he saw. It seemed, at this point, that his eyes were permanently blackened and his face permanently swollen. Scars and fresh gashes marred his cheeks. He was always sore from one Cruciatus Curse or another. But there was a glint in his eyes and an edge in his voice that proved that the bold, outspoken Seamus Finnigan who had been missing since Dean left had returned.

Lavender had always pictured herself falling in love with a hero, an athlete, a Prince Charming. Her mother had read her plenty of fairy tales as a child, and she knew without a doubt that she was a princess. She had gone after Ron Weasley last year because he was close to Harry Potter, he was going to help save the world. Somehow now, Seamus Finnigan - all scars and bruises and swollen features - looked more appealing than any smooth, polished Prince Charming ever had.

At Christmas, Luna was taken off of the train by Death Eaters. Ginny Weasley didn’t come back after Easter.

Things really escalated after Ginny’s disappearance. The Carrows were angry, and Snape seemed sallower than ever. After one particularly harrowing experience where he was sure that Amycus Carrow was planning to Avada Kedavra him, Neville disappeared into the Room of Requirement and didn’t reemerge. Students began to follow him, taking up permanent residence in the only place they could be sure was safe from the Death Eaters. Lavender led more than a few there herself, whether by actually showing them the way or through her whispered words. She had always been good at spreading gossip.

Parvati and Seamus were ready to move into the Room of Requirement before Lavender was, and they wouldn’t go without her. 

“Padma is already there,” Parvati explained. 

“Yes, I know,” Lavender replied. “But if we go into hiding, what about all of the kids aren’t a part of the DA? Who will help them?”

The next day, after Lavender took a Cruciatus curse that would have otherwise been aimed at a third year Ravenclaw, Parvati told her in no uncertain terms that they were going. Seamus didn’t say anything, but one glance at the expression on his own bruised and puffy face told Lavender not to argue.

Neville had been hiding out for about a week before they arrived, and Lavender had to admit that it was impressive, what he had done with the place. The hammocks and the house colors hanging on the walls were all very welcoming, and the tunnel to the Hog’s Head was brilliant. Lavender did take it upon herself to improve the washroom situation, much to the delight of the other girls who were present.

Even while hiding out in the Room of Requirement, they found ways for small rebellions. As hellish as this year had been at Hogwarts, Lavender was proud to say that the student body was not going down without a fight. At night, she sat with scared first years, painting their nails and telling them stories about better times at Hogwarts, Seamus smiling warmly at her from across the room.

They kept up with news about the outside world as best as possible, using their wireless to listen to Potterwatch. They heard a rumor that Dean had been captured. (Seamus folded in on himself for a few days.) They heard all sorts of rumors about the Golden Trio, the most outlandish being that they had broken into Gringotts and ridden a dragon out. Lavender wouldn’t have put it past them. If anyone could break into Gringotts, it would be Hermione Granger.

And then, suddenly, the trio was there, walking through the passageway with Neville, looking skinny and tired and determined. The DA was giddy, and Lavender was steeling herself for yet another fight. Neville was filling Harry in, gathering the troops, organizing them in a way that she never could have predicted a year ago. 

Lavender felt Seamus’s hand grip her shoulder as they all talked to the trio, filling them in and learning, to their dismay, that the three of them had not come back to fight. Lavender barely had time to process this, however, before over the muttering and angry voices, she heard Seamus roar in delight and felt his hand leave her shoulder.

He was hugging Dean, and Lavender felt, for a moment, as though the world had shifted slightly back into place. 

In this room, that had stepped up for the students in their greatest moment of need, now stood the complete set of Gryffindor seventh years. Only half of them had weathered this horrendous year at Hogwarts, and the other half looked as though they may have weathered much worse. While the eight of them had never exactly been a close-knit group, circumstances had led them all here, had toughened their skin and prepared them for a fight.

The Golden Trio would not have to fight alone.


End file.
